by Ed Teja
He frowned. “You think he’ll come? It would be safer to trade for Gazele.”
“He’ll come. He likes being in control and taking her means he still holds the cards.”
He shrugged. “Makes no sense to me.”
“If you do spot him, if he tries to sneak by you—”
“I let him.”
“Right, but I suggest you do it without letting him pass by close behind you.”
A quizzical look flashed over his face. “Why?”
“Because I think he is a professional killer. He might decide that slitting your throat from behind is too easy to pass up on. That’s what I’d do in his situation.”
He swallowed hard. “Then if I see a man, I find some business across the room.”
I nodded and pointed to a door under the stairs. “It could even be the right moment to decide to go to the bathroom.”
He smiled. “That natural enough.”
“Then you can follow up the stairs… quietly.”
“Like some sneaky assed gecko.”
The image of a gecko stuck in my head all the way up the stairs to the room. I paused on the landing, which circled around to accommodate four doors that opened onto bedrooms, and another to a closet I knew was filled with cleaning supplies. I stood next to an old-fashioned table and found myself trying to remember the name for these narrow tables that have a fold-up extension no one ever uses. It was hopeless. I can never remember the names of furniture.
A mirror hung on the wall at eye level over the table. The mirror itself was nearly oval but a big ugly frame added little swirls to the corners. The top was covered with a lace doily and on that sat a Bible and a two-foot tall, incredibly hideous, hand-painted (badly) porcelain statue. I’d seen them in the shops. The statue was either of some saint or maybe a study of the old man who sleeps on the docks and begs for food. Either was possible. At any rate, it had been there a long time.
Our ostensible prison was the behind the first door. Opening the door and stepping in, immediately immersed in shadowy light from a night light and the odor of incense — a sweet, pungent, piquant odor, reminiscent of something from childhood. It took a moment to realize it wasn’t incense at all, but the powerful smell of night-blooming jasmine rushing in on evening breezes through an open window.
My hackles went up. Even though it was barred, that window shouldn’t have been open. After going to such lengths to set this up, I doubted that the inspector wouldn’t think to close and lock the window. Besides, when I’d scanned the building it had looked closed.
I froze, looking out into the night, my senses alert, remembering to breathe steadily, in through the nose, out through the mouth. At the same moment, my phone vibrated. That had to be Bill warning me that a window that should be shuttered tight was wide open.
The plan might be blown, but I was dead certain that Nate was here — in the room with me.
19
Nate’s voice came from a dark corner of the room. “She never was here, was she, Marty?”
“No.” I stayed still. I had to act as if he had a gun — if he’d come for her, hit seemed reasonable he’d be armed. I also doubted he had any particular religious or ethical concerns that would keep him from shooting a person, such as myself.
“I guess you think you are pretty clever.”
“My ego does go there at times. Other times, however, I’m not nearly clever enough.”
“You didn’t think I’d move so fast.” He sounded pleased.
“True. I also have no idea how you reached that window without a ladder.”
He laughed. “I used to be a roofer. I came up the porch, then over the peak and hung down off the gutter. This place is pretty well made and the gutters are sturdy.”
“After I rescue Gazele, I’ll pass along your professional opinion. She’ll be glad to hear it.”
“But we have a problem here. You lied to me. You don’t have her at all. I can’t believe you lied to me.” He actually sounded hurt.
“There has been a lot of lying going around.” I wanted to keep him talking. Spinning out the minutes might give me a chance to learn something. “You agreed to a swap and yet, here you are.”
“You assumed I’d cheat,” he said.
“It isn’t completely my fault. You haven’t been honest with me.”
“You label me a cheat because I fibbed a little? How does that work?”
“You kept going on about that damn clock of yours,” I told him. “I knew I didn’t have time to track her down.”
I heard him sigh. “So, you decide to lure me here, with the idea you can grab me and force me to tell you where I’ve stashed this Gazele bitch?”
“That is pretty accurate — a decent summary.”
“This isn’t any help at all.”
“Actually, nothing I did was intended to help you. No one here likes you.”
“Why? Just because I grabbed the woman?”
“You kind of started off on the wrong foot with me in several ways, but yeah, that was what put it over the top. There are also some who think you might be the one who killed the yachtie. That factored in too.”
“Davis?”
“Right.”
He laughed, hollowly. “Davis was no yachtie.”
“Sure he was. He lived on a yacht.”
“Fuck. Not finding Donna is a serious problem.”
“Not so much for me.”
“No?”
“She isn’t exactly my concern. The only reasons I had for caring where she was to give her to the police and prove she does exist and to trade her to you for Gazele. Under the circumstances, it’s clear that you had no intention of making the trade, so that reason is gone entirely.”
He considered that. “You said the cops thought you were involved. Seems you sorted that out and the cops believe you now.”
“Maybe. Who knows with cops?”
That line struck him as actually funny. Who understands other people’s sense of humor? “Sure thing. Well, now things are complicated.”
“That’s what the inspector said. I didn’t realize the two of you were on the same wavelength.”
“I’m a man of the people and get these things.” He stepped from the shadows and unfortunately confirmed my guess — he had an automatic in his hand. “I’m guessing you have people watching the window now.”
“They were supposed to be there before. A day late and a dollar short for seeing you come in, but useful if you leave that same way.”
“I don’t think I could get back up on the roof anyway. My arms aren’t as strong as when I did that every day. I was planning on… well, this whole situation is inconvenient for everyone concerned, especially if your goal is to keep people from getting hurt.”
“Sorry.”
He went to the bed and sat down. “I’m just thinking here… it seems to me I should kill you and leave.”
“I wouldn’t like that much.”
“I should do it, but a gunshot would bring the police running. I saw that both constables have guns. I doubt they are very good with them, but I’m not in the mood to risk a shootout. The clock is still ticking, and if one of those kids got lucky and wounded me — ”
“I’m glad you noticed they are armed.”
“I’m an observant sort.”
That much was true. “And getting shot is tacky. So what’s Plan B?”
“I’m thinking I could throw you out the window and when the cops rush in… naw, that’s back to a firefight again.”
“Too risky — those concerns about getting wounded and all.”
“Right.” He stood up. “Okay, that settles it, we leave together.”
“Hey, as much as I’d love to go for a stroll, I already have a date.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to cancel, wise ass. Turn around and go out that door just like nothing is wrong.”
“That would be lying with body language. Yo
u complained about me lying, so I’m trying reform.”
“Tough shit. But before we promenade, turn and face the wall. Get up close so your hands are on the wall, palms flat against it. Spread your feet apart.”
“Why? I didn’t bring a gun,” I said.
“Well, seeing as we both have found folks do lie on occasion, I’ll check that for myself.”
He put his foot by mine so he could trip me if I moved and patted me down, finding the thermos. “What the fuck?”
“Coffee. I thought I’d be here a while.” He tossed it on the floor and continued his search. “Seems you know how that’s done,” I said.
“I was a cop once,” he said. “But I got promoted.”
“Nice. A kid should strive to get ahead.”
He held up my knife, which he’d found strapped to my leg. “And what have we here?”
“A knife. I said I didn’t have a gun.”
“Yeah, you did say that.” When he stepped back, he tucked the knife in his belt and told me to lie face down on the floor.
“If I’m on the floor I can’t go for a walk with you.”
“I changed my mind. I’m a mercurial crook, after all. Those cops are just kids, really. If I moved fast, I’m sure I can get out the front door with no trouble. They are probably half asleep.”
“Could be,” I said.
“If you stay put, you’ll be able to do whatever it is you do another day.”
“Haul cargo,” I said. “I haul cargo from one island to another.”
He poked me with a toe. “I didn’t ask.”
“True.”
Nate went to the door, looking over at me as he turned the doorknob and opened it a crack.
I tensed, readying myself to jump up the moment he went out. I’d be slow out of the blocks, but the two cops would at least slow him down a little, and I might catch him from behind. Plus, Bill was outside. Since I hadn’t replied to his text, he’d be watching close. When he saw the commotion, he’d move in. Then we’d have a chance to take him alive.
“Later,” Nate said. He jerked the door open wide to find the tall, skinny constable, frozen in place, looming in the doorway, blocking it. He must have heard the thermos hit the floor, and been reaching for the door to come in. He stared at Nate then his eyes fixed on the gun in Nate’s hand pointing right at his gut. As the cop backpedaled, Nate moved forward.
I was up and moving, shouting something — I have no idea what. As I went out the door, Nate closed on the kid. Panic filled the kid’s face, then I saw a flash of determination. He grabbed the hideous statue in one hand and spun, smashing it into the side of Nate’s head.
Smacking an attacker with whatever is handy is what you call good self-defense, and from that point on, things could have worked out several ways. Unfortunately, the universe, in its infinite wisdom, chose an outcome that we wouldn’t have chosen. It wouldn’t have made our top one hundred.
From where I stood, I saw blood gush from multiple wounds in Nate’s head, blinding him. He screamed and reeled, grabbing the banister that was the edge of the landing. Then he lost his balance. Roofer or no, he lost his balance. I heard him shout something obscene and rude and then watched as he toppled over the edge of the bannister and fell over it, landing with a sickening crunch on the hardwood floor below us.
I went to the banister and looked down. His crumpled form didn’t move.
The scream must have been pretty loud because the front door burst open and Bill and Jeff tore into the room, followed closely by the constable. They ran over and Bill squatted by the body, checking for a pulse.
“Think he broke his neck,” Bill said, looking up at me. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, but shit.”
“Fuck,” was all I could say.
By the time I came down the stairs, Jeff stood over Nate’s body, looking down on it, stunned.
“He was gonna kill me,” the young constable said, wilting under the look of pure rage Jeff gave him.
Jeff didn’t move a muscle, but the skinny boy backed himself into a corner and leaned against the wall, his arms hanging down, his body shaking like he was having attacks of malaria and palsy at the same time. As upset as this turn of events made me, my heart went out to the kid.
His reaction was understandable — he’d been sure Nate was going to kill him, and he’d done what he had to do. I was sure he considered an ugly statue to be nonlethal force, but it hadn’t worked out that way and now he was sure Jeff was going to rip him apart.
“What we gonna do about Gazele now?” Jeff moaned. “With this man dead, how the hell do we find her?”
I put a hand on his shoulder. It was tempting to remind him that he should have been out looking for her, but he was in pain. “We go back to the original hunt,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Make sure your boat is gassed up and ready to go. I’m betting we get word on that yacht soon.”
“You think so?” He clearly didn’t.
“It’s a small island,” Bill said.
“Time is on our side now. The fishermen will be heading out as usual this morning and it’s a perfect chance for them to make a sweep of bays. If you remind them to look, I bet they’ll see something. Offer them a free bottle of rum. We’ll go back to The Barracuda and start calling around.”
“You sure that’ll work?”
“It has to,” I said.
I was reasonably confident we’d find her. The question was whether Nick and Nate had set up some contact time to confirm that Nate had grabbed Donna. I couldn’t guess what orders Nate would have given him.
“Once we find out where she is, we are going to want to go right away. Probably first thing in the morning.”
Jeff snorted and walked over to the constable, who tensed up. “Sorry I was raising sand like that, Mike. This man dying weren’t your fault,” he said. “A man come at you like that and you got to defend yourself. You gotta be plumb crazy not to smash the fucker.”
“Thanks, Jeff. I wish it hadn’t killed the asshole.”
“It just bad luck this time.” Then Jeff glanced at me and nodded. “The boat gonna be ready. I gonna be ready. You best find my sister so we can go get her.” Then he left.
As the door closed, Bill gave me a cockeyed look. “I hope you can come through on that promise,” he said. “He won’t forgive you that easily.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, then bent down and pulled my knife from Nate’s belt. I might be needing it soon, and there was used having it tangled up as evidence in some crime scene.
I looked at Bill. “I know. If I hadn’t already been, I’m in the frying pan now.”
20
“We have to keep news of Nate’s death quiet,” I told Inspector George when he came to survey the carnage at the guesthouse. “We don’t know if Nick is in touch with anyone on the island, but if he gets word that Nate is dead there is no way to tell what he will do.”
Inspector George handed me a mug of coffee he’d filled from my thermos. “I hope you know that we won’t do anything to endanger Gazele’s life,” he said.
“That would be more reassuring if I didn’t hear a caveat in that.”
“Even with good intentions… well, keeping secrets isn’t one of the things my people do best. People seeing how upset Jeff is will send some message.”
The coffee tasted bitter, but I sipped it, appreciating the fact that the inspector was beginning to identify with his people again. Viewing himself as an outsider would hamper his ability to function well, but the rum and tropical heat seemed to be taking the starch out of his UK training. At this rate, he’d soon be someone who could do well in this job — synthesizing first-rate law-enforcement training with a knowledge and acceptance of the island culture.
“I understand that,” I said. “And even if you can keep a lid on the news, we need to act quickly, anyway. That Nate creep has passed his ticking clock to us, with h
is deadline. And I know you need to find that woman before she does whatever she came her to do.”
Inspector George looked at me solemnly. “Exactly.” He took the measure of me. “I’m glad you see that.”
We both knew the rule of thumb — the longer a kidnapping goes on, the less chance there is of rescuing the victim. “Taking time provides an opportunity for things to go wrong, or the kidnapper to grow impatient and act impulsively,” I said. “Knowing that, we need to be realistic. Unfortunately, I don’t think either of these two thugs was all that patient to start with. Nate’s attempt to preempt the swap demonstrates that.”
“That might simply be due to a complete lack of trust on his part.” He coughed. “You know, I’ve been thinking about this business Donna has on this island, and why people might want to stop her, and why it’s so urgent. And then I did a little checking.”
His thoroughness was impressive and the idea they could be connected intrigued me. “Okay. Do you know what it is?”
He nodded. “I’m beginning to think these three all came here for the same reason. I talked to law-enforcement people in the US and heard some news. A friend of mine runs an organized crime task force in New York. He told me a story that might let us pull the threads together.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Donna said Nate was a pro killer. In my experience, clever people often base their lies on truth. So, pretend for a moment that her claim is true.”
“I can do that.”
“This friend told me that they been chasing down a rumor, that’s what he called it, that a mob has gotten very unhappy with a guy named Steve Miller.”
“And why do we care?”
“This Steve Miller is quite a high-profile man. Seems he is well known for building lavish Caribbean and Mexican all-inclusive resorts. But it seems that a recent resort deal didn’t work out the way he promised certain investors who just happened to be laundering money for the mob through it based on some rather unfounded assurances.”
I looked at him. “Miller. For some reason that name rings a bell. I have no idea why, but I’m sure I heard it recently.”
